before.”

The boy looked squarely at him in sullen resentment a moment, but with such opportunity at hand he wouldn’t waste time with the likes of him. He asked, “What moves them things round?” and the man kindly opened the watch at the back and displayed all the cunning wheels which respond to the loosening spring, explained how it was wound each day to keep it from running down, and in answer to the boy’s eager questions as to how such things were made told him something of watch manufacture.

At last the wonderful hour was over and the two strange men prepared to leave.

“Good-bye, son,” said the man; “one of these days you will leave the mountains and go out into the big world to live a life of usefulness and honour, I hope.”

The words, so simple and commonplace to the man, were to the boy like a telescope lifted to the unknown heavens, but through which he could not yet look. He watched the men go down the mountainside, the strange words which he did not comprehend, but was never to forget, ringing in his ears. A bit of heavy timber hid them at last, and the boy stood dejected a moment, his heart swelling with an agony of strange longing, while the dog looked up at him almost pleading to understand. Then suddenly, with a cry of hope, Steve sprang after them, the dog following. Breathless he came upon them, and the man turned in surprise at the tragic voice and face. When the boy could speak he panted out:

“I’ve got the bes’ fox skin anywheres hereabout. I’ll swap it with you uns fer that watch thing.”

The man suppressed a smile and kindly replied:

“Why, lad, I couldn’t do without it for the rest of this hunting trip, but I tell you what I will do. When I get back to the city I’ll send you one.”

“Then ef yer’ll come home with me I’ll give ye the fox skin now,” the boy responded promptly.

“Oh, never mind about the fox skin now; I must get back to camp before dark and we are many miles away,” said the man.

“But I can’t take the watch ’thout you git the skin,” said the boy sturdily.

“Well, now, I’ll tell you,” said the man, realizing that he had struck the stubborn, independent pride of a mountaineer. “You give me your name, tell me where you live and I’ll send you the watch; then next time I’m over here I’ll get the skin.” The address was a difficult matter to determine, but the mountaineer helped them out.

This satisfied the boy and he saw the two strangers depart with better spirit, since he could look forward to the coming of the watch. He did not understand how it would ever reach him, but trusted the stranger implicitly. When the last sound of departing feet among the underbrush had died away, Steve turned and went home with long, rapid strides, the dog recognizing the relief and following with wagging tail.

He found supper on the table, the savoury bacon and hoe-cake greeting him from the door. The head of the family, lean, lank and brown, was already transporting huge mouthfuls from the tin platter to his mouth; the fat, slovenly daughter sat for a moment to rest and cool her face before beginning to eat, while the mother still occupied a chimney corner, pipe in mouth, for she “hadn’t wanted nothin’ to eat lately, her stomick seemed off the hooks somehow.” These, with the boy, composed the family, a row of graves out under the trees at the back of the hut 19 filling the long gap between Mirandy, a young woman of twenty-one, and Steve. The boy sat down, but before he ate that remarkable tale of his morning experience had to be told. When he was done the father said:

“Huh, better let city folks alone; don’t have nothin’ to do with none of ’em.”

The boy, feeling the rebuke, then turned to his supper, but when his father had gone out to smoke, and Mirandy was in the lane looking for her sweetheart, Steve stole up to his mother’s side and stood digging his toe in the sand hearth.

“Mammy,” he said at last, “what makes that man diffrunt from we uns?”

The old woman smoked a moment in silence and then said:

“Wal, there’s a heap over the mountains what makes him diffrunt,––things we ain’ never seen ner heern tell on.” She smoked again a puff or two, then added, “I recken schoolin’s the most.”

“What’s schoolin’?” said the boy.

“Larnin’ things,” she replied.

The subject of schools had never been discussed in the boy’s hearing. His father didn’t believe in them, there wasn’t a book, not even a Bible, in all the scattered little remote mountain community, and if the boy had ever heard either books or schools mentioned 20 before the words had made no impression on him.

“Do they larn to make watch things thar?” he asked.

His mother said she supposed so, “she knew they larned out o’ things they called books,” and then she explained as best she could to him what schools and books were. When his father came in again Steve said boldly:

“Pappy, I’m er goin’ over the mountains an’ larn how to make them watch things.”

The mountaineer stood as if paralyzed a moment, then his dull eyes blazed.

“No, you won’t nuther! Not a step will ye go! Ye shan’t nuver hev nothin’ to do with no city folks, so help me God!”

The boy dropped back cowed and trembling; he had never seen his father so stirred. He didn’t dare ask a question, but when the mountaineer had seated himself in the chimney corner opposite his wife, he continued:

“City folks with all their larnin’, fine clothes an’ fine ways ain’t to be depended on. I wouldn’t trus’ one of ’em with a jay bird lessen I wanted to git shed of it. Don’t you let me hear no mo’ o’ your goin’ over the mountains arter city folks.”

The prejudice of some mountaineers against the 21 city is deep-seated. They have little use for the “settlements,” meaning the smaller towns, but the city is their abomination. Jim Langly’s prejudice was even stronger than that of the average mountain man of this type, for it had been a matter of contention between himself and his wife in the early days of their married life. She had always longed to see what was beyond the mountains and besieged him to go till the subject could no more be mentioned between them.

Steve soon climbed to his bed in a corner of the room with a very heavy heart. If city folks weren’t to be depended on then he would never get that watch, and all the beautiful visions of learning to do things in a wonderful new world grew dim and uncertain. So heavy was his heart as he fell asleep that when he waked at daylight, it was with a terrible sense of loss and grief. The morning meal over he wandered off with Tige, dull and dejected, till the unlucky rabbit had crossed his path and stirred strange, resentful enmity towards his little familiar contestants of the woods. Sending the dog angrily off he skinned the rabbit with savage jerks and then carried it at once back to his home, saying:

“Fry it, ’Randy, fry it dog-goned hard.”

His mother caught the sullen, angry tone, and 22 when Mirandy went out in the kitchen to begin the dinner, she called him from where he sat on the door-step.

“Come here, sonny.”

It was a rare term of endearment, and Steve got up quickly and went to her side.

“Don’t think too much o’ whut ye pappy said about city folks. He’s allus hated ’em fer some reason, I don’t know whut, ’less hit was ’cause I saw one when I was a gal afore we married, nuver min’ how ner where, and arter that I allus wanted to see whut was over the mountings. Ef ever ye git a